Goodnight My Someone
by SilverStarsAndMoons
Summary: Rachel's always wondered what it'd be like to know her mother. After Jesse St. James introduces her to Shelby Corcoran, she gets her wish. Rachel/Jesse.


She never needed it – it's not like they say about children of gay relationships. Rachel never felt the lack of a mother and never cared until she hit puberty and suddenly couldn't look her dads in the eyes the day she got her first period. Instead, she locked herself in the bathroom and sat on the toilet and cried until one of her fathers knocked on the door and said, "I've got the supplies here, Prima Donna, when you're ready to come out."

She didn't come out for a few more hours, and that's when she realized that maybe a woman could have dealt with this better. At least a woman might have known how to get blood stains out of panties. As it was, Rachel spent an hour and a half on before she found a remedy that worked.

A mother – it's not something she actively thought about on a regular basis. Of course she wondered sometimes, looking in the mirror, if her mom had the same dark eyes or long hair or clear soprano singing voice that Rachel has. She wondered if her mother was tall or short, if she still lived in Lima, and even if she cared at all about the little bundle of dark hair and waving fists she handed over to Rachel's dads sixteen years ago.

But it was fun to pretend. Maybe Rachel's mother looked like Fanny Brice. Maybe she was blonde haired and blue eyed, even. She could be a dancer or a doctor or a lawyer like Rachel's dads. She could be singing on Broadway this minute.

But Rachel preferred to think of her mother in some unknown audience, watching Rachel sing. Maybe she had another reason to be in that place, at that time, but she imagined that faceless, nameless woman watching her belt (much improved lately) or hit the highest note of her range without a strain. She imagined her applauding and suddenly, a glimmer of recognition would pass between them.

Really, what all these fantasies came down to was one thing. Rachel wanted someone to be proud of her. And that someone she wanted was her mom.

Curled in bed at night, clutching her old baby blanket and listening to the end of _The Music Man_, she closed her eyes and pictured a face that looked like hers, a smile that matched her own, and she sighed, burrowing her head in her covers, wishing once that she could hear a female voice say, "I'm proud of you. You make me proud."

//~//

Jesse St. James, agreed the Glee club, was an insufferable bastard. And that was true in some ways. He was unbelievably arrogant. He had no tact and very little in the way of a filter when it came to criticism. As Mercedes put it, "He's about ten times worse than Rachel and his looks don't make up for being Douche Central."

But he got Rachel. And they'd sit and discuss unknown Broadway musicals with two-week runs and he'd know every actor, every nuance of every song. They'd duet in the field and watch the bees hum drowsily over the clover, listen to each other's notes change and curl on the transient air.

He may have been arrogant, but his arms were warm, his kisses soft, and he gave her access to the Vocal Adrenaline stage (not the most important, Rachel would argue, but who was she kidding. The acoustics in there were amazing). So despite the puppy dog looks from Finn and the glares from the rest of the choir, she stuck with Jesse.

He'd shine the spotlight on her, but shift it to the side so that the light was more ambient, less harsh on her skin. He'd stand with her on the marked stage and place a hand on her stomach, encouraging her to breathe less raggedly, to measure her notes and work on sustaining. And while he did this, he fixed his eyes on the very back of the auditorium and project.

"You should be able to whisper and they should hear you in the back row. You should be able to melt an entire audience of five hundred with a single tear on your cheek."

She'd listen and work with him and end up making out with him just outside the circle of the spotlight, but he was never completely present and several times, she saw his eyes flit away from hers to track something else in the shadows beyond the big light.

It wasn't until her fifth practice session, standing in her favourite kilt and owl sweater on the stage, that she finally saw who it was he couldn't keep his eyes off of.

The woman who watched just beyond the shadows under the overhang wasn't very tall. Her body was slight, her hips thrust forward confidently. But what Rachel noticed was the prominent nose, the hazel eyes and the long dark hair the exact colour of her own.

When the woman spoke, her voice was firm, no-nonsense, used to being obeyed. "So you're Rachel Berry. That's some set of pipes."

Rachel's mouth opened to speak, but no words came out, and the woman raised her eyebrows. "I would have thought any daughter of mine would be able to speak without any problems."

It dawned on Rachel that there was a reason for all this, somewhere in the back of her head; but just like she couldn't take her eyes off Shelby Corcoran, leader of Vocal Adrenaline and her biological mother, she couldn't articulate the thought. In fact, she felt about five years old, and just as wrong-footed as the time she wet her pants on stage and managed to forget all of her lines, including the song she was supposed to sing, in the school play.

Shelby looked bored. "Jesse mentioned that he'd met some girl over at William McKinley whose last name was Berry, but I didn't make the connection until a few days ago. When I heard you sing, though, I knew that it was probably the Berry girl that I was thinking of."

"Did you . . . I mean, have you ever thought about . . .?"

"Finding you before? No. I don't like kids as a rule and I'm pretty bored with this job, too, but some of these kids are talented and I suppose I do it because I haven't got anything else to do."

She focused on Rachel again. "Listen, I'm not here to sit down and have a long gab session about my feelings or anything. I'm not really that interested in you as a person – no offence."

Rachel swallowed. "None taken," she lied.

"What I am interested in is if you've got any of my talent. I'm looking for a new lead soprano; Marci quit to go to some college in Texas or something and I'm desperately in need of someone with the same vocal prowess she had. If you're a daughter of mine, you've got a fifty percent chance of being able to fulfil those requirements, so let's see you get up there."

She turned, her hair swishing over her shoulders, catching the light of the big spot overhead. Rachel found herself wishing she could touch it, for a moment – could shine be soft? Could Shelby know the secrets of keeping frizzy hair under control that she could pass to Rachel?

"Jesse. I want full lighting. Rachel – pick a showstopper and kill it. I want to see you literally almost on your knees from emotion."

Rachel had been working on a number from _The Light in the Piazza_, and she nodded to Jesse, who went to the piano at the side of the stage, picking out the chords of "Fable". Rachel closed her eyes, reached for her confidence, and began to sing.

"Fable" is a song of wistfulness, hope, regret and desperation. It's not a song that Rachel has ever even had the inclination to sing, but Jesse had been encouraging her to break out of her normal comfort zone and she found that her voice carried just the way she always dreamed it would, to the back of the auditorium and up to the very top of the dusty lights above the stage.

She threw herself into it, her fists clenching, her eyes tearing, and for a minute she forgot that anyone was listening. Her voice traced the longing, the heartbreak and the tears, and at the end, she heard a strong voice join hers in harmony.

"May it last forever – the light in the piazza."

When Rachel opened her eyes, the light of the bright spot blinded her, and when she managed to focus on Shelby's face, the spots in her eyes obliterated any real definition of expression on the woman's stony features.

But Rachel swore she saw something there, deep in the cold hazel eyes – pride, maybe?

"Well, kid, the job's yours if you want it. I'm glad to see your dad decided to educate you properly. That was one of my conditions when I agreed to be the surrogate."

"You know my dads personally?"

"Just Andrew." She shrugged. "We had a thing before I found out he was gay. It's a bit of an issue with me." She cleared her throat, turned away. "We rehearse every day, four till midnight. Dance routine starts promptly at six. Lateness isn't tolerated."

Rachel clears her own throat, hearing the confidence creep back into her voice for the first time. "Thanks for the offer, but I'm happy with New Directions."

Shelby's eyebrows rose. "Really? I've heard about your history with that club. And with that nut job Sandy Ryerson. Honestly, is having a mental illness like a requirement to get hired at that school?"

Rachel blinked, shook her head. "I don't know anything about that. But I'm happy there. I'm happy with the songs we're doing and even with the crappy choreography. This club is awesome, but frankly, you've got all the talent you need."

She hopped off the stage, feeling the soles of her shoes slap roughly onto the tile. Shelby stalked over, towering over Rachel by a good three inches, even so.

"Hmm. I don't get it, but then, I can't really find it in me to care. I did find it interesting to hear that you've got my exact range when I was your age. Keep it up. Tell Andrew he did a good job."

A small glimmer of something deep down in Shelby's eyes caught Rachel's attention, and without thinking, she put a hand on Shelby's arm.

"Thanks. For letting me sing here."

"Thanks for coming by," said Shelby easily, but she covered Rachel's hand with her left hand and squeezed a little. "You're a cutie. Use that nose to your advantage."

She winked and walked to the back of the auditorium. "Jesse, cut that light. It costs us an arm and a leg to run it."

Later, Jesse caught up with Rachel around the back side of Carmel High. Rachel sat in the field, blowing the dandelion fluff off a single stem and practicing runs a half-step lower than she'd normally sing them.

"You're getting better with that head voice," he said, and sat slightly behind her, gathering her into his arms. She laid her head against his collarbone, listened to him breathe.

"Did you know?"

"Did I know what?" His voice was teasing; he traced the contours of her cheeks, and she smiled, but turned her head to find his eyes.

"Did you know she was my . . . mom?" The word sounded foreign in Rachel's mouth, and she looked down, the dandelion stem clutched in her fist.

"Not at first. She mentioned it later, that she'd been a surrogate and that you were probably her daughter. She knew for sure when she saw you at your Sectional. You really are her spitting image."

Rachel shook her head, her face crumpling then, and Jesse hissed under his breath, pulling her tighter into his arms. "Hey. She's a good teacher. She's not really that big of a bitch."

"It's not that. It's just . . . she didn't care, really, about how I was, or even who I was. Just my voice. She just cared about how well I could sing. And all this time – you had me here so that she could scope me out, didn't you?"

Jesse had the grace to look slightly ashamed. "Okay, so I did let her scope you out. But she asked more questions about you. She didn't just ask how well you could sing or dance."

"Like what?"

"Like she wanted to know what you liked to talk about. How you dealt with stress; if you cried easily. She wanted to know what made you laugh, what you liked to eat and your favourite thing to wear."

"Mom stuff," breathed Rachel, but she shook her head. "It sounds like a passing interest."

"I don't think so," Jesse replied, settling his arms more tightly around Rachel. "I don't know, really. She did want you for Vocal Adrenaline, but she seemed awfully interested in you, too."

Rachel didn't say anything else, and just as the sun set, she got up. "I've got to pick up my bag. I left it in the auditorium."

"Okay, but try to be quiet. I think they're on dinner break and Shelby insists on absolute silence so that she can mark up the scores in peace."

Rachel traced her way through the hallways, getting lost three times before she found the auditorium on her own. Tiptoeing as quietly as she could, she snuck in the side door and spotted her bag at the base of the stage.

She made a dart to get it, but bumped into someone solid. There was cursing, then she dared to look up and found herself looking into the eyes of Shelby Corcoran.

"Couldn't stay away?"

"No, my bag. It's over there." Rachel's trademark stubborn pout was on her lips and Shelby actually laughed instead of scolding her, like Rachel expected.

"I'm gonna say this once, and only because I like you. I really wish you'd reconsider. You'd have fun here, and there's a lot I'd like to teach you."

"Well, I'm fine, thanks." Rachel stalked over, picking up her bag. "I've done fine without you so far."

Shelby's face closed. "Oh, okay. Yeah, that's right, I'm sure you have." She stalked in the other direction. "I mean, God forbid I actually want to get to know my daughter."

"What?" Rachel almost yelled it to Shelby's retreating back. "You were here this whole time. You knew my dads; it wouldn't have been hard for you to look us up. I went years without any mother figure and I grew up just fine."

Shelby half-turned. "Just so you know, it wasn't my decision to stay away. It was theirs."

"Whatever." Rachel slung her bag over her shoulder and glared at Shelby. "I'm not interested. I needed you sometimes and you weren't there, and I don't care whose decision it was. I don't care, because I did it myself anyway and I'm fine now."

Shelby's face softened a little. "Yeah, you are. You're doing well."

Despite herself, Rachel looked Shelby in the eye again. "Did you never, ever wonder? I mean, not even a little?"

"Sure I did. I wondered. I didn't think about it if I couldn't help it but I wondered. If you'd look like me. If you'd have my voice. I wondered."

Rachel sighed. "I wondered, too. I wondered who my mom was. If she missed me. If she ever regretted handing me over and walking away."

Shelby didn't say anything for a few minutes and Rachel listened to her breathing on the air for a moment before she looked up again.

The woman standing before her was actually smiling – not the tight, controlled smile she'd seen earlier, but a softer smile this time.

"I'm glad I got to meet you, Rachel. And I know I haven't got the right, but. I'm proud of you. Of your strength as a performer and of your confidence."

Rachel smiled then, too.

"Thanks."

Later that night, she lay in bed with a different recording on her iPod and her blanket on her cheek and thought long and hard about Shelby Corcoran. A face to the name – a myriad of expressions to dissect, conversations to think over.

And one missing spot filled in.

A someone to slot in place of "I don't know".

"Thanks, Mom," Rachel whispered in the dark.


End file.
